2012 (5722 ‘AM): Resolutions and Renewal

2012 (5722 ‘AM): Resolutions and Renewal

As we approach this New Year, it has become an adapted tradition of the secular world from the Jewish high holiday Rosh Hashanah, or Zikhron Teru’ah (“memorial with the blowing of the horns”), in which with the coming of the New Year, a person is to contemplate and repent of their wrongdoings to seek and entreat forgiveness. With the commonly called “New Year’s Resolution” however, it is instead common practice to make goals for the coming year.

I cannot honestly remember what my last year’s resolution was, but for me, 2011 was an unnecessarily rough year. And for the most part, I have succeeded in moving on and dealing with such problems accordingly. This year I learned how to stand up for myself, better discern people and patience, and how to stay strong and waiting when circumstances threatened to break my dreams. 2011 made me a stronger person with the many uncalled-for struggles I had brought upon myself. Though on a forward note, there is much to undertake in 2012 if I am to commit to photojournalism and kickstarting my journey toward Israel.

I have many unsettled and irresolute possibilities of how to approach my dreams; either I can attend college here, become a Jew here, live here for the last couple of years, OR I can live in Israel, terminate my American citizenship, and take in the whole experience while I am still young.

It is good that I have so many options of going about this, and I am totally convinced. It reminds me that I have many roads to choose from which would ultimately land me in my heart’s calling. But I need to choose, and I need to choose fast.

My New Year’s Resolutions:

-invest in a Nikon D7000 camera
-transfer schools
-work at least one stable job
-buy a car
-adapt and learn the Hebrew language
-attend a normal Synagogue
-guard the heart
-befriend at least five Israelis
-reserve more time for writing and reading
-let G-D keep control
-replace nostalgia of things past for nostalgia of things to come
-less thinking and applying it to acting
-GAIN WEIGHT

Most of these are like New Month’s Resolutions… nifla (wonderful…). But I am sure that there will be some long-term projects to develop along with that list, too.

I am eager for this New Year; it truly does feel different, and it is barely the cause of time. Renewal comes from HaShem and manifests within the working and patient heart of a man.

I know this year will be incredibly diverse, and rich with the change I have been waiting for and the experiences and sights I have always yearned to have. Father instills this within.

‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their
fathers–their treachery against Me and their hostility toward Me,
which made Me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of
their enemies–then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they
pay for their sin,
I will remember My covenant with Ya’kov and My covenant with Yishtak and
My covenant with Avraham, and I will remember the land.’

26:40-42 ויקרא‎ (Wayiqra/Leviticus)

“Insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes.”